Fox News announced the town hall on Thursday but said Sanders would be the sole participant, suggesting that Clinton had declined the invitation. In the 24 hours since then, Clinton apparently shifted course.

The town hall will be held at the Gem Theater in Detroit, Michigan and will come one day after CNN's Democratic presidential debate an hour north in Flint.

I'm still not sure how I feel about this. But I am sure that, barring some terrible catastrophe, I'll be watching... Monday night, 6 PM ET.

Showing 15 reactions

When I looked up what Clinton was doing, she was going to a fundraiser hosted by Madeline Albright. In England. As far as I can tell, she’s still doing it, but she pushed it back so she can do this debate because she got HAMMERED by people who knew.

Which has her in trouble twice- First, for how it makes her look that she only made the effort after her latest loss, and another for that she thought an overseas fundraiser was more important than spending time in Flint.

The pop up ads are supposed to have a clearly visible tag that says “hide” on the upper right side of the ad. There was a problem with them that the ad network said they fixed. When I visit the site, it’s there but I don’t have a smart phone (yet).

I’m sorry radpat that I deleted your comment. I didn’t realize there would be more discussion on the subject and I was going to email you.

If anyone can’t see the “hide” tab without reducing the size of the screen or making some other adjustment, can you send me a screen grab and tell me what browser and/or device you are using? That way, I can send it to the ad people.

The argument for. Not much in this column. For Bernie it’s exposure. He hopes his exposure gets out of the conservative bubble and it should get larger press coverage. Unfortunately, I smell desperation on his part.

Sanders has flushed Hillary out. She has to show up or look the coward with something to hide and the candidate afraid of Republicans. The opposition research writes itself.

I’d hate to think Sanders is so calculating he’s showing up on Fox hoping to draw Hillary into the lion’s den. So far, he’s mostly stayed above this with his famous call to ignore her email nothing burger. But his campaign is stressed now.

The argument against. It’s Fox News. There’s next to no overlap in the Democrat’s target audience. The risk is very high the narrative, especially for Hillary who Fox is desperate to crush, coming out of this Town Hall isn’t the message you hope to convey.

The other risk for Hillary is this is a town hall where she’ll be answering zingers lobbed to her by average folks, not conniving politicians like the #Benghazi! hearing. She’ll have to walk the razor’s edge to get out of this town hall with a boost to her image.

I only have problems with pop-ups on NewsHounds when I’m using my smartphone like I am now. I’m lucky it has a large screen. With some fumbling and some patience I’ve always been able to get it to go away.

What I’m seeing here is a desperation play by Sanders. He’s about to fall even farther behind, as he loses Louisiana by a large margin and struggles to compete in the other states. And he’ll fall another 100-150 delegates behind on Tuesday. By March 15th, even his supporters will have to admit what we knew this past week. But for now, he’s hoping to do something to make a splash.

So, yes, Sanders has agreed to show up on Fox News. From his perspective, maybe he could get some of the anti-Trump GOP guys to pay attention to him as an alternative – in that they hate both Trump and Hillary Clinton, and maybe they’ll give him a look-over. Further, by doing this, he lures Hillary Clinton into the situation. If she had refused to show up, he could campaign that she’s afraid to debate him there. If she does show up, it’s a guarantee that the Fox News group will mount as vicious an attack as they can upon her. Win-win for Sanders, Lose-lose for Clinton. Or so Sanders is thinking.

The problem for Sanders is that this audience is hostile to him as well. He will be asked questions like “Do you REALLY think the American people are going to elect a Socialist to be their President?” and “How much of my money do you think you can tax?” and “Isn’t it true that you weren’t even a Democrat before this race?” and “Shouldn’t you just pack it in since you can’t win?” They may try to soften him up with a couple of introductory balms but after that, expect the right wingers to throw as much mud at him as they can. It’s true that they want to have him as the nominee, since they know they can beat him handily. But that doesn’t mean they’ll hold back when they have him in their paws for an hour.

For Hillary Clinton, this is even worse of an idea. I think she’s trying to justify this mistake by saying that she’ll be able to show how she can stand up to the Fox News people. But she’s not counting on how nasty and personal the attacks are going to be. She’ll be asked for the millionth time about Benghazi. (I wouldn’t be surprised if they plant someone in the audience who can say that they’re a relative of one of the guys who died there, just for that great clip of the person tearfully asking her why she LIED, etc…) She’ll be asked about the email “scandal” and whether she’s concerned about her imminent indictment – particularly from the vantage point of Ted Cruz comparing her to a Mafia Don yesterday. She’ll be asked about the “arriving under fire” story, likely again by someone who will say they were there. She’ll be confronted for the umpteenth time about her husband’s infidelities and about how she’s a hypocrite for not advocating for women like Juanita Broaddrick and Paula Jones. She’ll be repeatedly challenged to show that she accomplished anything at all as a Senator or as Secretary of State. She’ll likely be accused of racism, as they’ll happily bring up anything she or Bill Clinton said during her 2008 campaign against Obama. In short, this will be a bloody mess. I see no way for Clinton to be able to get through this without a bunch of mud landing on her. Her only hope here is to finish the night and be able to say, “I took everything they had, and if that’s all they can come up with, I’m more than ready to deal with them.”

I agree that the appearance by both of them is a huge mistake. I would have preferred for both candidates to offer the Scott Wiener answer: “Fox News is not real news and you’re not a reporter.”

IMHO, the town hall format, which doesn’t allow Hillary or Bernie onstage together, will work in Fox’ favor: Fox will be able to concentrate on ripping each of the candidates individually.
A HUGE mistake on the part of both candidates, and another ratings bonanza for Fox. WTF is wrong with the Democrats??

I assume Hillary is expecting another performance like she did before the Republican committee of jokesters at the #Benghazi! hearings. Unfortunately, the topics will expand to every conspiracy theory the Hillary haters on Fox News have dreamed up over the years. I’d expect less than 20% of the spectacle will direct substantive policy questions her way unless Sanders intervenes again and protests enough of that bulls**t only the right-wing foamers who would vote Satan over Clinton care about.

Typically, town halls are set up for the audience to drive the conversation but think about the crazy nasty Chris Wallace interview of Bill Clinton NewsHounds recently recalled in a post. It was driven by viewer questions Wallace polled Fox’s audience for and subsequently parroted.

There’s no doubt the Fox News propaganda factory will game the audience to drive whatever narrative Roger Ailes hopes to promote.

Sanders has less to worry about. At this point, Fox News is desperate to win the White House and, while they’ll direct a few skeptical Socialism questions his way, they definitely want him to be the guy to take on the Republican candidate in the general election. Fox News won’t hammer Bernie until after he wins the election when he becomes worse than Hitler to them.

The sad thing is neither Hillary or Bernie have anything to gain and much to lose from a Fox News appearance. Fox-ites will spew the talking point 1/2 their audience is independents and Democrats. However, deeper research proves these self-described non-Republicans are just as conservative as their Republican counterparts. For example, Blue Dog Democrats who just haven’t changed their affiliation.

And, of course, weeks after this town hall is over, Fox News is going to keep data-mining clips from it to smear Hillary.

I for one am glad the two of them will be present and trust (hope) that they will join forces against the inevitably unfair and unbalanced (in its psychological meaning) treatment held in reserve for them.
I’ve been watching F&F a bit and notice a rising degree of blatancy: “Cavuto-mark” questions all over the place and Greg Jarrett is just about the poorest sub for Shep Smith they could ever have found. Ye Gads.

However, it was encouraging to watch a recent Luntz panel conclude that Kasich was the only not disgusting, not shameful, not embarrasing, adult in the last debate marked by lame jab after lame jap by childish men playing to the worst instincts of their audience. Given the general tone, I was astonished to see that segment. I guess Fox is trying to play all the fields until the pin drops for one or the other.

Although a Trump candidacy would probably guarantee a win by either Hillary or Bernie (who can be trusted to rally behind the primary choice), I’d really prefer to see Kasich in that role so that people will stop asking fully justified but nonetheless totally embarrassing questions about Republicans in the USA.